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Collective Security under the Gulf Cooperation Council

Rulers of the member states of the Gulf Cooperation
Council pose for a photograph.Courtesy Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman, Washington

The six Persian Gulf states of the Arabian Peninsula--
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the
UAE--formed
the GCC in May 1981 with the aim of "co-ordination,
integration,
and co-operation among the member-states in all fields."
Although
none of the committees initially established dealt with
security,
the final communiqué of the first meeting affirmed the
will and
the intention of the signatories to defend their security
and
independence and to keep the region free of international
conflicts. Four months later, the chiefs of staff of the
armed
forces of the six member states met to discuss regional
military
cooperation. The immediate objective was to protect
themselves
from the dangers posed by the Iran-Iraq War and the
political
violence associated with revolutionary Islamism. In a
series of
meetings over the years, the defense ministers and chiefs
of
staff devoted numerous sessions to the improvement of
military
cooperation and the creation of a joint command and joint
air
defense mechanisms. Managing their common security
challenges
collectively has made progress in some areas, but little
in
others. Creation of a fully integrated air defense system
was far
from a reality as of early 1993. The GCC states have not
realized
plans to develop an arms production capacity, although
they have
launched a new effort to revive an earlier arrangement
with Egypt
to create a pan-Arab weapons industry.

Political differences among GCC members have been the
main
obstacles to placing gulf defense on a collective rather
than on
a bilateral basis, even in such matters as achieving
interoperability of equipment and cooperating in training,
logistics, and infrastructure. The GCC experienced delays
in
reaching agreement to cooperate in internal security
matters
because Kuwait, the chief target of terrorism, feared that
its
relatively liberal domestic security regime might be
impaired.
Until Kuwait agreed to a GCC agreement in late 1987, Saudi
Arabia
and several other members of the GCC coordinated their
efforts
bilaterally, including the exchange of equipment,
expertise, and
training; the extradition of criminals; and the
interception of
border infiltrators. GCC members have adopted parallel
policies
on deportation and travel restrictions and share
information on
suspected terrorists and plots.

Ground and air units of the six member states have
carried
out small-scale combined training exercises. Military
assistance,
provided mainly by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait under GCC
auspices,
has enabled Bahrain to modernize its stock of combat
aircraft and
Oman to improve its air and sea defenses around the Strait
of
Hormuz. In 1984 GCC defense ministers agreed to create the
Peninsula Shield force and base it at Hafar al Batin in
Saudi
Arabia, about sixty kilometers south of the Kuwaiti
border. Under
the command of a Saudi general, the unit consists of one
Saudi
brigade and a composite brigade with token personnel from
the
other states.

The limited reaction of the GCC to the August 2 Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait exposed its weakness when faced with
direct
aggression against a member of the alliance by a much
stronger
power. The GCC immediately condemned the Iraqi action, but
when
GCC defense ministers met three weeks later, they could
only
agree on strengthening the Peninsula Shield force. During
the
Persian Gulf War, national contingents deployed separately
as
units of Arab task forces.

At the conclusion of the war on March 3, 1991, the six
members of the GCC, along with Syria and Egypt, met in
Damascus
to agree on the establishment of a permanent security
force to
protect Kuwait against future aggression. Syria and Egypt
were to
contribute troop contingents on a reimbursable basis. The
Damascus Agreement soon unraveled when differences emerged
over
the desirability of a long-term Egyptian and Syrian
presence in
the gulf. However, Egypt and Syria remain committed under
the
agreement to send military aid to Kuwait and the other
gulf
states if a threat arises.

Kuwait subsequently negotiated defense cooperation
agreements
with the United States, Britain, and France as an
additional form
of security if its borders were again threatened
(see Kuwait: Background
, this ch.). At a GCC meeting in late 1991, Oman
proposed that the six GCC members develop a 100,000-strong
joint
security force under a unified military command. The Omani
plan
was set aside after other defense ministers questioned
whether
the manpower target was attainable and whether
administrative and
procedural problems could be overcome. The consensus of
the
ministers was that the Peninsula Shield force should be
the
nucleus of a unified army, the realization of which might
be many
years in the future.